TOOLBAG TUESDAY

On average, I’d say girls have way prettier things in their apartments than guys.

Decorative bowls for the mail. Fake flowers for the bathroom.
Purple towels.
Things other than bacon in the fridge.

Also, we normally have a thoughtful variety of products in the shower.

Tom, this guy who dated my friend Melanie’s roommate, wasn’t interested in shampoo.

He was interested in jewelry.

Aaaand...he was interested in stealing it.
And re-selling it.

GAW!!!!

The only good thing I can say about Tom is that when he was confronted about STEALING HIS GIRLFRIEND’S ROOMMATE’S JEWERLY AND RE-SELLING IT, he didn’t try and deny it.

But, then again, when the owner of a pawn shop I.D.’s you as the douchebag who sold him the jewelry in question, there’s very little you can argue.

"Yea, he was about this tall, with a beard and dark hair," the owner described to Melanie.

"Oh, yea, and his name was Tom."

Tom had sold the jewelry at a pawn shop three miles from their apartment.

He probably also stole things from his girlfriend that we don’t know about yet. And the girlfriend said she’s pretty sure he stole jewelry from her mother’s house, too.

(May the female gods rain PMS-fueled rage on him for the rest of his life.)

Melanie’s roommate was her best friend, someone she knew for years and years who she thought was a good judge of character.

Melanie now remembers things were fishy when she came home one night late, at 5 a.m., and saw Tom wandering in the hallway near her bedroom door.

"Oh, I was just trying to find the bathroom," Tom said, although he was very familiar with the layout of the apartment by that point.

Melanie, sleepy and half drunk, didn’t think anything of it then, but now says, "Right. He was probably going through my shit when he heard me at the front door."

Exactly when Tom took Melanie's jewelry is unclear. She noticed it missing one day, yet nothing else in the house was taken. No broken doors or windows. Nothing else out of place.

It was the ring she noticed missing first.

It was a special ring given to her by her first boyfriend, a guy who has since passed away.

GAW!!!

(Eh, theives don't care.)

"Where is it??!!!!??" Melanie screamed, dumping out her jewelry box looking for it. It was a unique-looking ring, and irreplaceable.

That’s when she noticed the other jewelry missing from her jewelry box. Diamond earrings. A pearl necklace.

"Someone stole my things!!" she screamed to her roommate, who looked concerned.

Melanie was livid. She then remembered Tom’s late-night bathroom break and suggested to her roommate that he was responsible.

"No, Tom would NEVER!" her roommate said.

Melanie wasn’t convinced. That dude was a late-night bedroom-door creeper.

(Ok, so that isn't exactly "beyond a shadow of a doubt" but what other explanation was there??)

She certainly didn’t misplace half of her jewelry collection, especially not that ring.

She was determined to get it back.

The idea that someone could have been rifling through her things was nauseating (I know the feeling. I've personally been been robbed). 
Melanie looked everywhere in her room, all over the house, her purse, her car, at work. 

WAS SHE TAKING CRAZY PILLS???

After a few days and nothing turning up, Melanie began a swoop of pawn shops as a final desperate attempt.
And BINGO. There was her ring, and all her other jewelry in the glass case.
She cried.

Thankfully, the pawn shop owner was understanding, and gave her back her ring when she described details that you could only know if you saw it up close or, uh, owned it.

"WHO SOLD THESE TO YOU???" she demanded.

"A guy named Tom."

Rather than call the cops (I wish) she called her rooommate and insisted she come to the shop right then to confirm that she was, in fact, dating a winner.

Then it was time to confront Tom.

"What, baby?" he said on the phone. "We needed the money."

!!!!

WE?????? WE???????

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘WE!!??’" her roommate screamed as Tom tried to explain that "those dinners didn't just come out of thin air."

WHAT!!!!!!

GAW TWICE!!!!

She broke up with him immediately and apologized profusely to Melanie, who was just relieved to get her ring back.

But, just as things were getting back to normal, her roommate annouced that she had started dating the pawn shop owner.

!!!!!!

Coincidentally, that was the same time Melanie moved herself, and all her pretty things, out.

-Jenny